[A composite volume : containing The ballads and songs of Ayrshire ...

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( Keeps dirjping awa'—but I'm living yet !" j
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KEMAKKS.
unrivalled. Had Ainslie never written another song but this one, it
would have gained a jjlace for him—like the authors of " Mary's
Dream," and "Lucy's Flitten," in the pantheon of Scottish lyiists.
But Ainslie's fame does not rest upon the humorous ; he has high
claims upon the sentimental and the descriptive. We lia.ve no seasong
in the Scottish language equal to his " Rover of Lochryan."
Whoever, like ourselves, has been " on the deep, deep sea," when
" the winds were piping loud, and white waves heaving high ;" when
the good ship trembled from stem to stern, as she " bowl'd o'er the
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back of a wave," will find the rough niusic of old Ocean echoed in the
strains of this fine spirited ballad :
" It's no when tlie yawl, and the light skiffs crawl
'O'er the breast o' the siller sea, &c.
But when that the dud lays its cheeks to the flood,
And the sea lays its shouther to the shore
When tlie wind sings high, and the sea-whaups cry,
As they rise frae the whitening roar.
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Unstent and slack each reef and tack,
Gie her sail, boys, while it may sit
She has roared through a heavier sea before,
And sheHl roar through a heavier yet !"
We confess that we never read this admirable song but our old heart
bounds within us ; as, in the days of other years, we feel ourselves \
once more on the quarter deck of a tight frigate, with a flowing sheet,* \
going thirteen hiots in chase of an enemy ! The inspiration of the
poet is complete ; we
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* From an expression in Allan Cunningham.'s fine song, " A wet sheet, and a
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flowing sea," landsmen are apt to imagine that a sail is meant, whereas it is a \
rope. When a ship is sailing before the 'wind, she is said to be going with ti,
flow- \
ing sheet ; that is, with the sheets, or ropes, of the main and foresails slack; in \
contradistinction to the sheet, or tack, being close-hawl'd when sailing on a xvind.
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